


only for one night

by JenelleLucia



Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Multi, this is kind of a fix it, this is my first work here wowow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 10:52:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16427984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenelleLucia/pseuds/JenelleLucia
Summary: if reuenthal were around a little longer, this is his only chance at pretending to be a father to his son. / post-logh, if reuenthal were alive.





	only for one night

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a little late for posting on reuenthal's birthday, but i hope you enjoy it!

“Again, thank you for babysitting him just for tonight, Oskar,” Eva hands Felix over to the fleet admiral, who finishes up straightening his best friend’s necktie. “i know admirals Müller and Bittenfeld are going to be here to get us any minute -- Heinrich!” she calls up the stairs to her other adopted son. “we’re going to be leaving soon!” 

“Coming!” Heinrich is all dressed up as well, and he jogs down the stairs and passes by Felix, who is now nestled comfortably in reuenthal’s arms. “Felix, you be good for Admiral Reuenthal now, alright?” the younger boy nods with a giggle in response, and Reuenthal hoists him up into his arms. Heinrich gives the best of a salute he can to his former charge, and Reuenthal salutes back, watching as he goes over to join his adoptive parents. 

“We’ll be home soon,” Mittermeyer is the last to go over to him, and he lingers for a bit after handing the car keys to Eva and Heinrich so that they could go get the car started. “Are you sure you don’t mind? I know this wasn’t how you planned to spend your birthday, but --”

“Think nothing of it. I'm sure we’re going to get along just fine,” Reuenthal looks at the little boy in his arms, and watches as his best friend leans over to kiss the boy on the forehead.

“Felix, be good for Uncle Oskar now, yes?” Mittermeyer brings a hand up to ruffle Felix’s hair gently, and he nods. The fleet admiral looks back at his best friend and reminds him to call him in case anything happens, and the moment that he shuts the door behind him Felix and Reuenthal are left alone. The fleet admiral sets the little boy down, and they’re standing toe to toe, and they’re looking at each other in silence. what could they possibly do tonight, while his parents were away? 

(It’s his son, Reuenthal reminds himself. He felt that had no right to call himself Felix’s father anymore, not when he had asked his child’s mother to entrust him with the Mittermeyers. And he seemed fine, after all; Felix was doing rather well with his adopted parents. How would he have done if he had raised him, and Reuenthal thinks that there would have been no benefit to Felix being raised by someone like him.) 

Felix tugs at Reuenthal's hand, and he blinks in surprise. Felix is not afraid of him when he looks down at him and that he might seem to glower, but he watches as the boy continues to hold his hand. He’d give his own son that, after all, and soon enough he’s led out to the backyard. It’s quite late out -- a little too late for Felix to be out there and awake for that matter -- and they stop in the center of the backyard, and he looks up. Reuenthal looks up, too, and the stars are vast at this hour. 

(He would know.) 

“ _Vater_ , or Heinrich, or Mama stay with me,” he explains, eyes never breaking from the sky. Reuenthal guessed that this was to be expected of his own son, that he’s looking into a whole other world within his reach and he’s come so far once in his shoes. He expected this, he knows that he did and he remains silent. Constellations dot the sky and several other stars around it, and much, much farther into space is a war that he knows that he would never want his son to experience when he gets older. 

Reuenthal bends down, and he hoists him up into his arms, and there’s a star -- a bright one, that catches his eye and he points up at it. They’re both looking at it, Reuenthal knows, but his son is too distracted by the size and how brightly it shines and he reaches for it. He reaches for it, just in the way he knows the kaiser would have, and he purses his lips together. 

_ You too, Felix _ , he thinks, and there’s no resignation when he thinks of it. There’s no resignation, but there’s the expectation, and he’s  _ torn. You, too,  _ and that can only mean so much to someone else as it does him. 

“The stars are bright, aren’t they, Uncle Oskar?” he’s never heard the boy address him once until now, and he’s unsure of what to feel. This is  _ his _ son, and he has no right to call himself his father now, but he is unsure of how he feels when he hears his son, who has no knowledge of who he truly is, call him by another title. There’s no numbness, or any other type of feeling to it, but there is...comfort. There’s comfort, in the fact that his son is growing up normally and that he’s healthy and that he’s a happy boy, and that he’s getting everything that he never would have been able to give him. 

(He’s  _ comforted _ , by the fact that Mittermeyer and Eva can be for him what he cannot.) 

“Let’s head back inside, hm? I bet you’re exhausted,” he says when he hears a yawn coming from Felix, and the little boy nods. This is his son, and he has no right to call him his father, but he knows that he can feel that right now he can pretend to be one when he falls asleep in his arms. 

. 

Reuenthal tucks Felix into bed later that night, after he wakes back and forth -- asking for milk, asking to read a couple stories or two, asking to talk. This was the closest that he was ever going to be as a father to his son, even when he was going to go back home to an empty apartment. He’s unsure of whether or not he likes the feeling, of being able to be close to his son like this, but Mittermeyer and Rva deserve him far more than he does. Oh, the irony indeed. 

“Is he sleeping?” he’s getting up to leave Felix’s bedroom, and he sees Mittermeyer standing in the doorway of his son’s room. The fleet admiral nods, and he goes over to join his best friend at the door. He’s got glasses of wine in his hands -- well deserved, really -- and he takes one last look at Felix before leaving the door slightly ajar, letting the light trickle into the otherwise darkened room and they leave Felix be. they pass Heinrich and Eva on the way down to the living room, where they’re already greeted by the wine in an ice bucket. They sit down on the couch, a comfortable silence overtaking them both. 

“This must have been one birthday night for you, hm?” Mittermeyer looks over at his best friend, and Reuenthal raises his glass only slightly. “I don’t think you would have expected to watch over your son on your birthday.” 

“He’s  _ your _ son,” Reuenthal corrects him, rather gently at that before swirling around the wine in his glass. “Tonight was, quite honestly, one of the quietest birthdays I’ve ever had.” It wasn’t all that quiet; he and Felix talked for hours -- about him in school, and instead of telling him stories from his books, Reuenthal mixes his up. He tells him stories of his father, of their adventures in the military, and then some. 

“He’s going to ask one day, you know,” Mittermeyer narrows his eyes over at his best friend, “why he looks like you rather than Eva and I. You think that he might not ask now, but when he’s a little older he will, I guarantee it.” 

“Would you rather I be around to tell him the truth?” 

“Actually, yes.” of course Mittermeyer was serious about that. Of course he was, because Felix was every part his adopted son as he was Reuenthal’s biological son, and Mittermeyer  _ knew _ that there was no way that he was going to let his own best friend have no part of his son’s life -- there was no way that he was going to let Reuenthal isolate himself from Felix. 

“He’s going to need you when he figures out the truth,” Mittermeyer goes on to say. “You would deprive your own son of your presence?” 

Reuenthal thinks it over, and after tonight, maybe he can’t. He thinks that he could, several times over that he could, but Felix will ask why he looks like  _ him _ and not like his parents, and Reuenthal does not fear that question in the slightest, and he knows that his friend and Eva aren’t either, but they’re preparing for that. They’re preparing for the confusion, for the frustration, for everything in between but that’s when they realize that in the end neither of them could really ever be ready; none of them could ever be ready. 

“He’s going to need you, you know,” Mittermeyer tries again. “When that time comes.” And it’s inevitable for that time to come, because Felix will grow, and Felix will understand and they’re all there to watch it happen. It’s going to happen, because he’s going to ask, and they know that in the end they were never really going to be ready for when he did. 

(Oh, how easy it was for Heinrich, because he understood and he knew. Felix did not -- not yet, anyways.) 

“He will,” Reuenthal finally acknowledges it, and he takes a sip of the wine that’s stilled. “He will.” 


End file.
